Get Your Rants

Followers

Sunday, December 6, 2015

Don’t do it, Jimmy; not yet

It would be so easy to begin this diatribe with a call to
immediately relieve Mike Pettine of his duties as head coach of the Cleveland
Browns.

Even lesser sophisticated fans, those who follow the team
only because it represents Cleveland and they never say anything bad about it,
realize the season has not only slipped away, it’s careening toward oblivion in
a monstrously embarrassing manner.

Instead, this diatribe will begin with a plea for Jimmy
Haslam III to fight the urge to fire Pettine in the wake of Sunday’s
ultra-embarrassing 37-3 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals.

No, Pettine must be made to wallow in the murky waters of
the final weeks of the National Football League season at the helm of this team. He should be made to
suffer every bit as much as the fans themselves. Maybe more.

He should be made to stand stoically on the sidelines while
his talent-starved, underperforming team slogs through the motions as they did
against the Bengals, and wonder just what the hell is going on.

No wonder the Bengals have outscored Cleveland, 98-10, in
the last three games of the lopsided series. They just (pick your own verb
here; I’m kind of partial to hammered) the daylights out of the Browns for 60
minutes on both sides of the ball Sunday. It was not even close to being a fair
fight.

It was the men against the boys on the lakefront as the
so-called Battle of Ohio turned into the Domination of Ohio with a decided
edge to the southern part of the state. No one on the Browns who played Sunday
should step forward to collect a paycheck and walk away thinking he deserved it.

Pettine should be punished for pretending to put a
professional football team on the field week after week after week only to see
that so-called professional football team act like anything but. Keeping his job would accomplish that. The Browns clearly did
not arrive ready to play a game of football Sunday.

The coach’s hokey “Play Like a Brown” mantra has become
stale and come back to slap him silly. If this is what playing like a Brown is
like, either change the mantra or change the players who are supposed to live
up to it.

Playing like a Brown certainly doesn’t mean playing
embarrassing football like they played for 60 agonizing minutes against the
Bengals, a team the Browns should seriously think about trying to emulate in so
many more ways than one.

Playing like a Brown has taken on a whole new meaning as the
club’s current losing streak reached seven games with no silver linings in
sight. The Browns are plumbing new depths as they streak toward yet another top
three slot in next year’s college football draft.

Everyone was culpable against the Bengals, who toyed with
their intrastate rivals all afternoon. This was, in the truest sense of the
word, a team loss.

The defense couldn’t stop the run or successfully defend against
the pass, while the offensive line once again had problems blocking for the run
game and handling the fierce Bengals pass rush.

Cincinnati quarterback Andy Dalton misfired on only five of
19 passes for 220 yards and opened up the scoring on the Bengals' second series of the
game when he sneaked in from three yards as the Cleveland defense was totally
unprepared at the snap.

That, as it turned out, along with 57-yard pass hookup with
wide receiver A. J. Green that began the drive, was a portent of things to come.
Green had beaten Cleveland cornerback Tramon Williams, whose desperate, lunging
reach managed to trip up Green or else it would have been an 84-yard strike. It
only delayed the inevitable.

No one realized it at the time, of course, but the rout was
on. The Bengals put points on the board in the next six possessions,
including three Mike Nugent field goals, to lead, 20-3, at the half and 34-3 late
in the third quarter.

They ran for 144 yards against the sieve-like Cleveland
defense; Dalton threw for two scores; he was sacked just once and hit just
once; and Green, whose 23-yard touchdown was scored with ridiculous ease on
what appeared to be a blown coverage, made nine-year veteran Williams look like
a rookie.

The Browns ran 12 first-half plays in Cincinnati territory
and managed to come away with just the three points, but even that was somewhat
dramatic. Another time management brain cramp by Pettine in the final seconds
of the first half removed any chance of getting into the end zone.

It took the Cleveland coach 12 seconds to call his final
timeout after Austin Davis’ short checkdown pass to Duke Johnson Jr. over the
middle advanced the ball to the Bengals’ 29-yard line. An immediate timeout
would have left the Browns with about 12 seconds to work with and multiple
options.

As it was, only two seconds remained and Travis Coons drilled
a 47-yard field goal. It was as though Pettine was playing for the three points.

The Bengals tightened the defense in the second half and
allowed the Browns to cross midfield only once on five drives.

The Cincinnati pass rush was relentless all afternoon, basically
eschewing whatever running game the Browns had and aiming for the bull’s-eye on
Davis’ uniform. The Cleveland quarterback was sacked three times, hit on at
least 11 other occasions and either hurried or flushed from the picket on many other occasions.

He was forced into grounding the ball twice and a backward
pass that was deflected by Cincinnati defensive end Carlos Dunlap was ruled a
fumble and recovered by the Bengals early in the fourth quarter. Not exactly
what Davis had hoped for in his Cleveland starting debut.

Boos rained down throughout the second half and bounced off the
numerous empty seats. The Browns were so bad that maybe even Pettine felt like
booing, too. This one is going to be hard to explain to his owner. The
temptation to finish the season with an interim head coach might be
overwhelming.

So please, Jimmy The Third, don’t do Pettine any favors and
fire him now. He might consider it an act of mercy if you do that. Resist the temptation.
Hold on a little longer. Only four more games. It might be painful to do, but try
and wait until the minute after the season finale against the Pittsburgh
Steelers. Then pull the trigger.

2 comments:

ELT (extreme lack of talent). Why Farmer still has a job is beyond belief. Davis did an admirable job, considering the ELT he was surrounded by. Even Mumbles or Payton couldn't get a win with this outfit. Pettine is in over his head and shouldn't have a HC job. Meanwhile, expect more bags.